Children of the White Angel
by Adi and Kit
Summary: The war is over, and Team Taka is a mere formality away from becoming full-fledged shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Unfortunately, one of the requirements is candor, and not a single one of them is willing to expose the secret they all share.
1. Chapter 1

Children of the White Angel

By Adi and Lutra

I.

_On this day, the third month of the first year after the fourth great shinobi war, the four former members of the Village Hidden in the Sound, Uchiha Sasuke, the kunoichi knows as Karin, Hozuki Suigetsu, and the shinobi known as Juugo, hereafter referred to as the parolees, are officially granted Leaf citizen status in lieu of completion of the following parole requirements._

_The first, that they submit to a full interrogation by Torture and Interrogation Team A and answer all queries about their experiences as Sound nin and what took place in their duration in the former Village._

_The second, that they submit to a full physical examination, to be conducted by the Godaime Hokage (__or a duly chosen representative)__, hereafter refered to as Godaime, at her discretion._

_The third, sharing of any and all jutsu learned during this time, __with the appropriate parties, chosen at Godaime's discretion, for the full extent of the parolees' stay in the Village Hidden in the Leaves__._

_The fourth, an oath of loyalty to the Village Hidden in the Leaves and its Hokage, to be done in the presence of the Council and the jounin of the Village._

_The fifth, that the parolees continue to respect the spirit of the former restrictions placed upon them, hereby officially lifted, so that their transition as full citizens of the Village Hidden in the Leaves might be as smooth as possible under these unfortunate circumstances._

_Under these following terms, the parolees will be granted Village citizenship as stated by the Godaime, on the day above-stated. Parolees will sign below in acknowledgment of these terms. Breaking of these conditions will result in stripping of citizenship and arrest. It is so ordered._

_(Four signatures follow.)_

* * *

Mitarashi Anko looked down at the clipboard, and then back up at the young man standing in front of her, watching her levelly. "Oh, Sasuke," she said, waving him in. "I remember you from the chuunin exams! Been a long time, hasn't it? Nice to see you're back here these days. Well, sit down, it's a comfortable chair. Want any water? I think I do," she paused and thought about it a moment. "Nah, I think I'll get some later." She took out a pen from her ponytail and prodded the corner of the paper until the ink started. "So, let's start at the beginning, shall we?"

Sasuke made a noncommittal sound, sitting down on the edge of the chair with his feet firmly planted on the ground and his weight more or less equally distributed into a half crouch that only coincidentally had him sitting on the chair. It was the only indication he gave that he was at all uncomfortable in this situation. To her, he looked a little bored. "I was born on July 23..."

* * *

Ibiki looked up from his notes as the door opened, eying the woman he was to interrogate up and down. _Karin, surname unknown_, he thought. _Red hair, near-sighted, bloodline limit that allows her to transfer life energy into another shinobi through a bite to heal them, chakra tracker. _He made a mental note to ask if the bloodline was supposed to mimic a sort of reverse-succubus power. "Karin-san. I believe we have met before in… less desirable circumstances. Please excuse the informality of using your first name, but you have not disclosed a surname. Sit." He indicated the chair in the center of the room.

He, of course, would be standing.

"Does it matter?" she asked, sitting down and crossing her legs. "I don't use it. And you're Morino Ibiki."

Ibiki made an executive decision and smirked in a way he knew stretched his scars grotesquely. "I see I left an impression. Yes, I am Morino Ibiki. l will be your interrogator today. I trust this session will be fruitful and that no unfortunate misunderstandings will occur between us."

"Yeah, sure," she replied. "Misunderstandings? Have the others been giving you trouble? I'd imagine Suigetsu would," she said, scowling. "He's such a bastard, isn't he?"

"Other interrogations are not your concern," Ibiki told her, looking down at his papers. "To begin, please state your surname for the record."

There was an annoyed tightening around the girl's mouth, and then she smirked at him and folded her hands in her lap, mockingly demure. "If you really need it, sure," she allowed. "It's Uzumaki. Uzumaki Karin."

"Hm, thank you," Ibiki responded, and looked back to his notes.

* * *

"Hey. Hey kid." Anko checked her brand new clipboard with a brand new pen. "Hozuki Suigetsu? That you?"

"Damn right," said the kid as he slouched to the chair. He sprawled into it without being invited, legs spread and arms across the back in the slouch universal for arrogant teenage boys. "Only take autographs on Saturdays, though." He grinned in a way that was closer to bearing his razor-sharp teeth than anything else. Anko wondered how he ate vegetables with those teeth. Did he have to take fiber pills or something?

* * *

Despite Juugo's size and notoriety of his curse, he appeared almost unassuming when he entered the interrogation room. He was quiet and reserved, and sat down immediately in the chair and refused to meet Ibiki's eyes. He tapped a steady rhythm on the armrest, one-two, one-two-three, and it soon got so irritating that Ibiki ordered him to stop.

"Sorry," Juugo said. "It just helps me concentrate."

"On what?"

"On where we are," he continued. "It's dark and underground and closed off and I don't like it."

Ibiki nodded, quickly settling on an interrogation approach for a shy, neurotic, potentially violent subject. "And why is that…" he checked his clipboard. "Juugo. You don't have a last name."

"Maybe I did. I don't remember it though." Juugo looked at the ceiling, studying it with far too much intensity. "And I don't like being underground because so was my cell. It was closed off from the light all the time. There was just a hole in the door and the walls were stone, and…" his brow furrowed in concentration. "I think that's it, sir."

"I see." Ibiki made a note that the subject appeared to have holes in his memory.

"But it will be okay today," Juugo said, about to resume the tapping, but instead folding his hands in his lap. "It's been okay for awhile now. What do you want to ask me?"

* * *

"Not that far back, kid," Anko said, though she still wrote the birth date down. "And you know it. Starting with what the hell you thought you'd gain by going to Orochimaru." she said the name with a frown. It still left a bad taste in her mouth, even though the last of his chakra was drained out of her during the final battle. These days all her chakra was her own, and even the old curse seal was gone from her skin.

Sasuke blinked uninterestedly, and then settled back in the chair a little. Acquiescing, she supposed. Well, at least he was willing to play the game. "Orochimaru offered me a chance to gain a lot of power very quickly in exchange for my service and use as an eventual vessel. I accepted."

"Yeah, he does that," Anko agreed. "Bet it wasn't worth it, though. Never is." Fucking bastard, she wanted to add. Fucking asshole who played with people's lives, but who died anyway, despite all his efforts to the contrary. That still made her happier than it probably should. "What did he offer you, at first?"

"He put a seal on me without my consent during the chuunin exam," Sasuke informed her, voice drier than the entirety of Wind Country and all its people combined. "While I was still in Leaf." He shrugged, eloquently. "I later found out that it was based on another Sound nin's bloodline limit. It produced a hormone that sent my adrenal glands into overdrive all at once. I didn't know that at the time. I just knew that when it activated I was stronger, faster, and less likely to notice pain."

"Yeah, been there," Anko agreed, making a mark on her pad and twisting her lips into a speculative look. "Not really worth the waking up, though."

"That," Uchiha drawled, "is a matter of opinion."

* * *

"Let's begin. When did Orochimaru induct you into the Village Hidden in the Sound?"

Ibiki frowned inwardly.

Karin shrugged. "Long time ago. Bunch of people came to my village, but I knew they were coming and hid. He found me afterwards and we went back to Sound. It was a place to go, you know? And he didn't seem all that bad at the time. Just another guy from another village. They're all the same, you know? Everyone from all the villages. They all think they're different and special, but put them all together and you can't tell the difference between them. I mean, Orochimaru thought they were special...lots of them, kept the best ones for himself...but outside of the lair everyone was pretty much the same."

"The same in what way?" Ibiki asked, making a few quick notations about the information she'd given. _Member of a now defunct village. Interested in her comrades' disclosures. Believes Orochimaru to have been deluded as to the importance of individuals within Sound-lack of loyalty?_

"You're an interrogator, don't you see it too?" she looked at him, as though expecting a reaction. He of course did not give one. "Every ninja wants the same thing, you know? 'Let's kill the guys from the other village.' They come to Orochimaru because he killed the guys from _all _the villages so they figured he must be the best. I mean, the ones that actually came voluntarily. I figured he was the best, too."

Ibiki frowned inwardly and made a note. He'd have to ask a few questions at some point to test Karin's loyalty. She appeared to be an adherent of the old philosophy 'the ends justify the means'-which was fine, in certain circumstances, but may be an issue in a new kunoichi who had abandoned previous villages. "Let's move on, Karin-san."

* * *

"So, we'll start with the usual. Where are you from, and how did you end up in Sound?" Anko asked, eyeing Suigetsu up and down.

Suigetsu lost the grin and somehow slumped even further into his seat. "You're no fun," he whined, and then sighed, completely put upon. "I'm from Mist," he said grumpily. "Had to run during the purge, 'cause of the bloodline, you know." He waved a hand dismissively before crossing them across his chest. "Orochimaru knocked me out and dragged me into Sound, then let me try to escape a few times before pointing out that cooperating with the Village would mean I could get strong enough to meet my goal _and_ end up with fewer broken bones." He grinned again. "Old snake followed through on that last one, at least. Something'd have to be moving pretty fucking fast for me to break a bone these days."

"The hell did he do to you?" she asked. "Did he help you towards your goal at all?"

"...Not really. Huh..." He looked speculative. "Actually, he mostly tried to see how fast I could react before I got hit with something mortally wounding, and then gave me all these bullshit painful serum things to try to make my reaction time faster." He rolled his eyes. "Best thing I got out of Sound was an accident."

* * *

"We should begin with your condition," Ibiki informed him, as he made a show of focusing on his notebook. "How long has it been since it was last… not 'okay?'"

"Since during the war," Juugo responded, flexing his fingers nervously in his lap and looking down at them in what appeared to be intense concentration.

"Is there a pattern for when these episodes occur?"

Juugo bit his lip and frowned at his hands. "I… no, sir. It… maybe when I am stressed."

"Hm…" Ibiki wrote that down, and then abruptly switched the direction of his attack. "Yet my reports say you didn't want to come here. Why."

"I'd rather just stay in my room, sir." Ibiki's reports claimed that Juugo had been asked three times in the last two weeks to the interrogation room, and refused politely every time. The only people he had seen since the war had ended were the Hokage, sometimes Uchiha Sasuke, and once Hozuki Suigetsu. Anyone else who came was politely asked to remain outside of the house. Ibiki scratched a quick hypothesis based on Juugo's general attitude that this was due to fear of accidentally harming a visitor for a later session's confirmation, and moved on.

* * *

"Heard you got to the second level with yours. How'd it make you transform?" She'd never reached that level, though when she was younger she tried, pushing herself as hard as she could in a desperate attempt to break through and show Orochimaru she was worth something. She knew better now, and knew she was better than that bastard ever deserved. Maybe this kid would realize he was better, too.

He hesitated for just a second. "Demon," Sasuke said shortly. "Large hands for wings."

"Huh," part of Anko was curious as to what that would look like, but part of her was always curious about the cursed seals. "Got rid of your seal, though. How'd you manage that?" Only reason she'd lost hers was because that pseudo-Orochimaru guy drained all Orochimaru's chakra from her body. Not that she remembered it happening, of course. She'd passed out early on and woken up in one of Leaf's camps, just in time to watch Sasuke break out again. Apparently he'd passed out from chakra exhaustion when he and his crazy powerful zombie brother had tried to get Kabuto to release edo tensei, and he'd been dumped in camp along with her when Itachi had passed through to let them know that the edo tensei couldn't be undone by the caster anymore (on account of coming down with a case of death), and he was going along to get rid of the others the hard way.

And... wow, that was the most emotion the brat'd shown the entire time. Not much, but a tightening in his mouth and around his eyes. "Itachi," he said shortly, and... huh. Well. If the guy was powerful enough to break the caster's hold in edo tensei, it wasn't much of a stretch to think he'd be able to break the cursed seal, too.

"What'd he do that got rid of it? Most we've ever been able to do is seal the damn thing."

Sasuke gritted his teeth, a muscle jumping a little in his jaw from the pressure. "He used an aspect of our bloodline," he said, voice drained of what little emotion it'd expressed. Anko waited for him to elaborate, and rolled her eyes when he remained stubbornly silent a minute later.

"Yeah, sorry kid, but you're going to have to give me more than that. The deal is you tell us anything we ask for, and that includes doujutsu." She smirked and narrowed her eyes a little for effect, making a show of settling in to wait.

Uchiha narrowed his eyes a little back, but he only held out another minute or so before relenting. "It's an aspect of one of the mangekyou techniques. A genjutsu sword that puts an unbreakable suggestion of sleep on the target. Itachi used it on Orochimaru when I lost control during our last battle. The genjutsu was strong enough to seal him and any influence he had on me personally. Including the seal."

"So that's how they finally got rid of him," Anko murmured, looking down at the page as she wrote. Everyone had admired Itachi a little bit when they met him again during the war, and she was definitely thankful he'd gotten her out of the mess she'd fallen into, but it was still weird to think that Uchiha Itachi had been the one to kill the man who'd ruined so many innocent kids' lives. "Your brother...was...a good man. Wish we'd all realized that sooner, right?" But they didn't, so that was that. "So, back to Sound. What did they do when you first got there? Did they require anything of you?"

* * *

"Did Orochimaru ever do anything to make you believe you'd been mistaken in your impression that he was 'the best'?"

"Not really," she replied. "He was damn good at everything he did. And... I mean sure everyone hated him, but everyone admired him too, 'cause we thought he could do anything. I don't think I thought anything different until he died. Then I knew Sasuke was the best."

Ah, an opening. Ibiki made a note, and then continued. "Everyone hated him, hm?" he murmured. "A strange thing to say, for someone who has previously been espousing her loyalties to a man. What actions did he take to make him hated in a village where the majority came to him of their own volition?"

"Oh, it was all the shit he did to them," she said. "You'd have guys go off for training and then come back without arms. Or sometimes they'd come back puffed up with snake venom and if I didn't get to them in time they'd die within the day. Nasty stuff, snake venom, have you ever seen it? Think it did stuff with their blood, but all I saw was their chakra going all haywire when they died. It's 'cause they weren't fast enough. And then he'd just leave them there until the bodies started to stink. He forgot about people all the time, you know? When he got bored with them. It was like, hey, you'd come for this..." she waved her hand in the air. "And then you'd end up getting injected with something and then ignored. Or dead." She shrugged.

* * *

"He gave you a cursed seal, then?" Anko asked. It seemed Sound standard that everyone was given the seal. "Always thought it was an accident that anyone survived those things. Only one in ten lived, did you know that? Probably," she added.

"Nah, don't have one," Suigetsu said with a grin. "Fucking psycho old person biting people on the neck, what the fuck, am I right? Nah, I didn't used to react as fast as I do now, but I was still fast enough to be a fucking puddle by the time that dude's teeth were anywhere near me. I don't think Karin has one either. Would fuck with her bloodline. Hey, can I have some water or something?"

"Yeah, that was pretty fucked up," Anko agreed. "I always wondered what's with the biting to administer the seal. Wouldn't just an injection work the same? Didn't ask that when I got mine, though." She paused to finish writing. "Water? Sure. Hey! Guards!" she turned and yelled over her shoulder. "Bring some water in here, okay?"

A few minutes later, the guards brought in two water bottles. Anko tossed one to Suigetsu and put the other next to her chair.

* * *

"You decided to join Orochimaru in Sound. Why?"

"I went to Sound because Orochimaru promised me that he would make this stop. He didn't. He just locked me up and made copies of me instead. He took the rages and put it into hundreds of people to see if it would take. It did in some, I think, because he made me fight a lot of them. I think they died. Most of them did. Most of them had my marks. Orochimaru put my marks on copies and called it a seal. It wasn't anything special, it was just my blood." Juugo's hands started to twitch compulsively. "It was all over Sound. I went to get cured and instead he gave it to everyone. And he only liked the ones who survived it. There weren't many who did…they were…there were…" one-two, one-two-three. Ibiki waited, watching as Juugo pulled himself out of memories. "It's too dark here," he whispered.

Ibiki nodded. "I will get another light." He ordered the guards to bring lights, then told them to set them up in the corners of the room. When they finished, it was significantly brighter, and Juugo relaxed ever so slightly. His frantic tapping slowed down to a steady pulse.

"How long were you in Sound?" Ibiki asked Juugo.

"I don't know. I don't remember. I think it was eight years. I think that's what Kimimaro told me."

"Did Kimimaro have one of your seals?"

"Yes but I didn't want him to!" Juugo stopped tapping and clenched his fists. "He saw me all the time when I killed people, and he was the only one who could make me stop! Then Orochimaru gave him the seal too, and then we were the same.

"We used to kill together, and when the seal ran out on Kimimaro, he'd talk me back. When I was younger, I'd cry, and then sleep, and then forget."

* * *

Back on firmer ground, Sasuke's face returned to what she assumed was its default expression of 'nothing going on upstairs.' "Of course," he said, bored. "I was in bad shape from the escape, so Orochimaru decided that it was the perfect opportunity to test my resolve and my resources by forcing me to work until I literally could not move. I passed out, I think. I woke up a week later in a new room with a new wardrobe and a delicately worded note informing me that if I wanted to be any use, I better not move around and undo whatever healing had been done to me."

"What'd he teach you first?" When Sasuke said nothing, Anko added, "This is the part where you get to tell me all the fun jutsus you learned there. Just list them all, tell me what they did. The men upstairs want this the most, really," she rolled her eyes skyward. "He taught you the snake hands thing, didn't he?" she rolled back her sleeve, ready to demonstrate.

"Hm. Yes. Plus, all the standard uses for snake summons," Sasuke acknowledged. "He taught me body shedding, as well," he added, mouth twisting in something like a grimace. "He also worked me a good deal with lightning, since it was the natural elemental chakra affinity for which I knew the fewest jutsu. While there, I developed chidori nagashi, senbon, and eiso, as well as kirin. That is a technique in which I create a natural situation in which there is likely to be a lightning storm, and then guide a strike from the sky towards my opponent," he explained. "Then, of course, sword fighting with a chokuto, further control of the cursed seal, weapon summoning-I summon kunai," he explained, reaching for his left wrist and tugging free a loose knot, unwinding the bandage there inch by inch until he exposed a circular seal tattooed onto his wrist. He held it up to show her, then rewound the bandage as he began talking again. "He spent a lot of time focusing on sharingan techniques. Genjutsu, ninjutsu copying, intuition," he listed. "I used sharingan to copy the body swap while he was using it on me, as well." He looked at her blandly, as though knowledge of that last one was _old news_. "Do you want specifics?"

"Well, they're going to want the details, kid, so pick the first jutsu and break it down for me."

* * *

Ibiki paused a moment and let the fact that Orochimaru purposely abused the loyalty given to him in order to destroy and then discard his own nin sink down into his bones. Then he made a few notes and continued. "You kept his interest?" he asked neutrally.

"Oh, yeah," Karin nodded. "He liked me. Let me be in charge of one of the prisons. He said he liked the way I kept order."

Ibiki made another note, then decided to go for a little stroll to the side of the room behind Karin and get himself a glass of water. He drank a glass, then turned to see that Karin had turned her head to follow him. He smirked at the uneasiness this showed. "Drink?" he asked, then began pouring her one anyway. "Please describe your methods for keeping order."

* * *

"Steroids were the standard, I think, 'specially with us lowly specimens who didn't get the cursed seal," Suigetsu said, rolling his head back to stare speculatively at the ceiling and sipping from his water bottle. "Then he figured out that I could more or less _make_ muscles given enough water, so he stopped fucking with my body chemistry and started trying to see how much I could take in before drowning instead. Back in the day, answer was 'a shit-ton,' so that took a while. Lessee... he'd pump me full of all these chemicals and shit, trying to see if he could get my endurance any higher, and then to see what my body'd do with a poisonous foreign substance. He, like, would slip that shit into my food or something, so I wasn't prepared for it, or get a venomous snake to strike me when I was asleep. I spent a fucking year alternately curled in a painful ball sweating it out, and getting blood taken to see what the hell happened to get it to go away. Didn't adapt fast enough a few times, of course. He just about killed me a handful of times." He frowned. "Hmmm... Well, like I said before, there was 'training,' where the shit-head threw pointy objects at me in increasing speeds until I couldn't react anymore. Few times, he let me pretty much bleed out after, to see how long I could last. Sucked balls, let me tell you. Can I have another?" he asked, shaking the empty water bottle.

Anko wrote this all down as fast as she could, and then pressed the pen so hard into the paper that she tore through. "Fucking asshole," she said. "Fucking _asshole." _There was a time once when she actually admired _that fucking asshole _but that was a long time ago and fucking hell, now she needed a new sheet of paper.

"Hey," she snapped to the guards. "Hey!"

"Is something wrong in here?" one of them asked.

"No, I need more fucking paper, that's all." She answered angrily. "And more water for him," she pointed to Suigetsu, who was frowning intently at the empty bottle. "Bring a few bottles, he seems to go through it fast. Hey," she turned back to him, and tossed him her own bottle, still unopened. "Take this, too. What's with all the water anyway? Don't tell me until I get more paper."

"Then don't ask until I can answer," Suigetsu whined, setting the empty bottle on the ground and opening the next one.

* * *

"And when you were older?" Ibiki asked, making his voice as steady and disinterested as he could.

Juugo clenched his left hand into a fist, knuckles turning white as his fingernails dug into his palm. "I knew it was only a matter of time before Orochimaru used Kimimaro as a vessel," he answered, voice strangely quiet for the tension he was holding in his frame. "Once I wrote out the number of days left on my wall," one-two, one-two-three, went the unclenched fist, "and then Kimimaro got sick and the days were shorter," one-two, one-two-three. "And then he was dead."

Ibiki let the silence stretch out between them, thick with tension and interrupted only by the tapping fingers.

* * *

"Fun stuff," Anko said wryly. "What was the usual training schedule like? Did you actually get to stop for food? I never did," she shrugged. "Easier that way, I guess."

"I started carrying around soldier pills after the first month," Sasuke said blandly. "Not exactly good for your body, but at least I didn't collapse until _after_ I got back to my room. Plus, minimum required nutrition." He shrugged.

"Oh those! Yeah, those were always a good idea!" she agreed. "You know, I never actually thought of that. Pretty stupid of me, right? They really are useful when you're working as hard as he expects you to. Hey, did he ever do that thing where you had to fight like, ten of the venomous summons at once and not get bitten?" she looked up from the clipboard and grinned at him. "But that's impossible and they bite you anyway and then you had to find a way to stop the flow of the venom before it gets to your heart? He always said it builds character."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Chidori nagashi," he said simply, and then looked smug.

"Cool," she replied. "Hey, show me that, huh? Never seen anyone do that, and it's a really good idea. I just tried to cut off my arm, yeah, 'cause that was smart. Knocked myself out first before I could finish the job, which is good, 'cause what good is an armless ninja? Anyway. Chidori nagashi, show me that." she looked over her shoulder. "Hey, want to see this?" she called to the guards. They didn't respond, so she shrugged and turned back to Sasuke. "Well?"

Sasuke blinked at her. "You... want me to do chidori nagashi inside. While you are interrogating me," he checked, a note of honest incredulity in his voice.

* * *

Karin held the glass tight and close to her body. When Ibiki didn't move, she drank it all very quickly, and didn't hand him back the glass. "Keep them apart," she said after a time. "That's the best way to do it. People make villages because they want to be around other people. Even ninja, you know? They like it too. So if you take one…" she gestured vaguely in front of her. "And hide them from the rest, then he's going to stop causing trouble. If you hide a few of them, then put them back together, everyone's so happy to be back together that they'll stop causing trouble. It usually worked. And if it didn't, just beat 'em up until they stop talking." She looked down at the glass. "Orochimaru thought it was a good idea. He didn't think of it, keeping them apart. He just stuck everyone together and watched to see what they did."

Ibiki nodded, and wrote this down. "Isolation tactics are fairly well-known tools amongst guards and interrogators," he offered. To be honest, he would have done something similar, given a large group of overly aggressive nin to control. "You mentioned that Orochimaru watched the prisoners. What was he looking for? How would you describe the..." he searched for the right word, "character of his observance?" Young girl, man who treated people like particularly interesting specimens... rape was hardly a stretch, and if he was going to get it out of her, this was as good a time as any. Going slowly, of course. No need to scare her into clamming up.

"Yeah, it worked. And it made them all do what I said." She looked proud of this. "Oh, he watched us all the time. Waiting for us to do something interesting. I don't know what he expected us to do. Fight each other all the time? Try to take each other's bloodline limits? Make up jutsu like he did? 'Cause all we did was…" she shrugged. "Just what people usually do. Fight and fuck and sleep and eat. And stay alive. I don't know what he was waiting for us to do. But he kept watching and waiting. I don't know if we actually did what he wanted or not."

* * *

"Anyway, I got off easy. I got there late, and he lost interest pretty fucking fast, all things considered. I just spent the last year and a bit chilling in a tank of water."

The guard brought a thick sheaf of paper and a few more water bottles and handed them to Anko. She put the new paper in her clipboard and rolled a few bottles over to Suigetsu. "That enough?" she asked. "So, then, what's with the water?"

* * *

"Do you remember what Orochimaru's reaction was to the death?"

"I don't remember anything after that for a long time," Juugo said quietly.

* * *

"What, can you only do it outside?" Anko asked, scratching the back of her head with the pen.

"No." Sasuke looked at her for another long minute, then shrugged and stood up. "You may want to stand back," he suggested, before making four rapid seals, holding snake at the end. "Chidori nagashi," he said steadily, before his entire frame lit up with electricity. The lightning shot outwards from his form in tendrils, hitting the chair he'd been sitting in, the floor, in a two foot circumference from his body, and the ceiling light, which promptly exploded. It also made a good bid for Anko herself and shattered all the mirrored windows around the room quite handily, forcing the guards to leap backwards and to the ground in an attempt to avoid it. Anko dived out of the way and then leaped onto a wall to stay out of the current's way, then huffed at the eighteen-year-old looking blandly back at her, somehow managing to project _I told you so_ in every inch of his body without once changing the neutral expression on his face.

He was still holding the snake seal, posture perfect.

* * *

"Did Orochimaru ever get personally involved with the inmates, in any of his activities?"

"What, you mean, like, sexually?"

"If that's how you'd like to answer the question."

"No. Maybe. I don't know. No one really talked about it. But I think he just liked to watch us." Karin looked a little ill at the thought, but otherwise sounded rather sure of her answer. She was making eye contact, as well, and her voice was steady, so it was unlikely that she was lying.

Ibiki nodded politely, and made a note. Well, not every line of questioning was going to bear fruit. "You explained earlier that Orochimaru often experimented directly on the inmates. Were you one of these individuals?"

"Yeah, sometimes," she said. "See, when people bite me, I can heal them," she pulled up her sleeve to show numerous teeth scars. "He took my blood and injected it into everyone else to see if it would heal them. Most of them just died. He tried to make me heal myself, but that never worked, and I think I almost died a few times but they brought me back. They didn't want me to die 'cause I was too good with the prisoners."

"Did he attempt to place any seals on you?" Ibiki asked, just for thoroughness.

"He tried a couple of times to stick one of his cursed seals on me, but it didn't work."

* * *

I'm made of the stuff," Suigetsu chirped, leaning forward and resting his arms on his thighs, water bottle dangling between. "Biggest fuck-up in Sound, right here. They hyper-accelerated my bloodline limit by accident, see? So now I can't be cut, or crushed, or hit, unless you're really fucking fast and my body can't shift in time, like the Raikage or someone crazy fast like that, but I need to keep hydrated or I just evaporate." He grinned. "Drove Orochimaru crazy. Couldn't do anything to me, because if it wasn't water it just got separated and sloshed out. Pretty fucking neat, huh?"

"Yeah, that is kind of cool," Anko agreed. "But that would suck if you just evaporated. Must be a pain in the ass to keep up with that. So what, he just gave up with you after that?"

"Yeah, more or less. Stuck me in a tank I couldn't get out of and forgot about me. Got someone to dump a bucket of nutrient-rich liquid in every once in a while so I wouldn't starve, but that's about it until Sasuke came and broke me out." He took another sip of water and grabbed the next bottle. "Anyway, I'm used to keeping up with it. I've got a rhythm down, see. I don't even have to worry about evaporating while sleeping anymore. Used to have to set a timer to wake me up every hour. That was a bitch..."

* * *

"When were you allowed out of your cell?"

"When Orochimaru wanted me to kill people he didn't like anymore. When he wanted me to fight people and…I don't…I don't remember that much, but he did it a lot. When they wanted to take blood. Sometimes he let me out just to scare everyone else. That's it. I think. I didn't even know Kimimaru died until Sasuke let me out. He told me."

"How was information normally passed in Sound?"

"I don't know."

"What was Orochimaru's purpose in experimenting on your blood?"

"I don't remember."

* * *

"Yeah, that is better for outside," Anko agreed, jumping back to the floor and scooping up the fallen clipboard. No, it was still intact. "Hey!" she shouted to the guards. "We're all okay in here, how about you?"

One of the guards looked back in and glared at her.

"Everyone's okay out there too, then," she said to herself. Time to find the pen. Oh, there it was, rolled to the corner. She picked it up and tested it against the paper. Oh good, the pen still worked. She didn't want the bother of going to find another one. Then, back to Sasuke. She eyed him up and down for a minute, mouth in a moue again, and then let herself visibly relax.

"He had no idea what you can really do, did he?" she said, keeping her voice quiet and conversational. "What you were capable of? I don't care if he was your teacher and taught you everything you know or some shit like that. He had no idea."

"No," Sasuke answered levelly, still holding the seal. "He didn't. That's why I managed to beat him. Even as weak as he was, if he hadn't underestimated me, I wouldn't have survived the meeting."

"Well, good thing he did," And, she thought, good thing this boy was on their side now, or going to be. "So," she looked at the remains of her chair and frowned. Did that mean she'd have to stand for the rest of the interrogation? This could be a long time. "Hey, can someone get me another chair?" she called, then leaned against the wall for the time being. "And hey, I get the picture, you don't have to keep the seal up. Instead, tell me about that fight, the one where you brought him down. What exactly happened?" Sasuke had succeeded where she failed, and she wanted to know how. Sasuke took his time sitting down, but he did tell her in the end.

* * *

"Oh, why not?"

"My body rejected it. He'd put the seal on, and it would hurt like hell, but then it'd just get neutralized. It made them take a lot of blood from me, all the time. He wanted to figure out why that happened and make the seal even more foolproof. But he took blood from everyone, and experimented on everyone, so it wasn't like I was _that _special. And it was like that for years and that's just how Sound _worked, _and, umm, can I go get something to eat? I'm really hungry."

Ibiki raised an eyebrow at her, but let it slide. This wasn't a prison interrogation. The subjects could take breaks if they felt they needed one. "Absolutely, Karin-san. In fact, I think we're done here for the day. I will see you again on the day after tomorrow at the same time, and we will discuss your knowledge of Akatsuki."

* * *

_Leaf has way too many fucking apartment complexes_, Suigetsu thought, dodging around yet another shinobi on this building's roof. Sending a quick spurt of chakra into his feet, he jumped over a vegetable garden box (snatching a pea pod off of a vine and munching on it on the way), and landed just at the edge of the building. "_Shit_," he tried to say, before choking on a piece of pea and having to phase it away before it caused him to unbalance and plummet twenty stories and splash onto the road below. It had rained recently, which was objectively awesome, of course, but meant the roads were muddy, and Suigetsu didn't feel like spending the rest of the week sweating mud and fuck else that was on the road at the moment. Fortunately, they'd put Sasuke in a building not too far from the city center, so it only took about ten minutes on the roofs to get there from any direction.

Unfortunately, city center meant _everyone was on the fucking roofs_.

He jumped to the next ledge and dodged around another kid, who shouted and threw herself backwards onto her ass in an attempt to get away from him (_still got it, baby_), before grabbing a flagpole hanging off the roof and swinging down and around to another beam. He pushed off of this one, too, before propelling himself straight at a window on the next building over, fully intending to break the damn thing open if he found glass panes.

Fortunately, it was a screen instead of a closed window, so he just liquefied himself and phased through. Easy as shit, thank you, I'll be here all week.

A second later, there was a sword blade resting just barely against his jugular. Behind him, his clothes plopped wetly against the other side of the screen and then fell about eighteen stories to the ground below. Suigetsu pretended to not be proud of the cries of alarm. "Sure, boss," he said cheerfully, ignoring the blade entirely and turning to face his unwitting host. "Go right ahead. I'll just sit here and mock the ink smudge on your cheek and the bedhead while you go at it."

Sasuke pulled his sword back and gave him a look that would make a lesser nin dry up and crumple to dust.

"Put some clothes on, you idiot," he snapped, and turned to stomp off towards a door that Suigetsu presumed was a bedroom. Suigetsu counted it as a win and made his way across the living room to the kitchen. _Oh, look, a refrigerator! Why yes, I am a little hungry. Ooh, yogurt!_ He helped himself to the yogurt, and then a bottle of water and a plate of rice balls, leaning his naked thigh against the open refrigerator door as he munched cheerfully. Sasuke came back into the room and threw a change of clothes at his head over the kitchen island before grumpily stomping back to his couch. There was a scroll resting on the floor near one of the arms and a pen leaking ink slowly onto a pillow still indented from what Suigetsu assumed was an unintentional nap. Sasuke picked the scroll up and smoothed it out, scowling at the wrinkles in the paper, before visibly setting himself to read it instead of pay attention to his guest. Suigetsu grinned and sauntered over, holding onto the change of clothes but not putting them on. He put the half-eaten plate of rice balls on top of the clothes and took another swig from the water bottle. Sasuke's eye twitched.

"Rice ball?"

"Get the fuck out."

"Aw, man, what'd I do?" Suigetsu asked, grinning with all his teeth.

"You were born," Sasuke snapped, eyes glued to the scroll in a very poor show of ignoring his former teammate, considering he was actually responding to Suigetsu when he said something. Suigetsu grinned even wider and leaned back against the other arm of the couch, stretching his feet until they rested firmly on Sasuke's low coffee table and placing the clothes strategically in his lap so that Sasuke's prudish sensibilities wouldn't be offended.

"Meh, couldn't be helped," he responded dismissively, waving a hand. "You get called to get your head examined yet?"

Sasuke grunted.

"Still crazy as fuck?"

"Why are you annoying me?"

"Boredom, mostly," Suigetsu returned easily, selecting another rice ball and biting it in half.

"Go annoy Karin."

"Man, you're hostile today! I already did that, anyway. She makes awesome soba! But I bet you knew that, eh?" he asked with a strategic eyebrow waggle. Sasuke was looking at the scroll like he was ready to kill something with it. Suigetsu felt very accomplished as he ate the last rice ball and considered going back for the veggies he'd seen.

"They asked me a lot of bullshit," he told Sasuke, spinning the bottle of water lazily between his hands. "Lots of shit about what Orochimaru did and what Madara did and all. I think they were expecting to need to pull out a doll! 'Show us where the bad men touched you!' Hah. Like Orochimaru was interested in that bullshit, and I'd bet Madara didn't even have a dick." He laughed. Sasuke's face went from annoyed to long-suffering. Suigetsu mentally patted himself on the back, then got up and lazily phased into the pants, not bothering to bend down to put them on all the way, and sauntered over for the veggies. And another water bottle. Hey, better than turning into a puddle on Sasuke's floor, right? Right. Ooh, an energy drink!

"Got the chick that was Orochimaru's student, though, so I guess she had reasons to be concerned the old bastard had gotten more perverted in his old age," he called over his shoulder as he finished the drink and selected a carrot. "Karin says they didn't ask about anything else either, though, so I dunno. Maybe they're just really focused on Leaf deserters."

Sasuke answered with a sigh before putting down his scroll and moving closer, presumably so Suigetsu would stop shouting loud enough to disturb his neighbors.

"It's sorta weird, ya know," Suigetsu continued, thoughtfully modulating his voice back to reasonable levels. "Like, do they really not give a shit about anything except their big baddies? Sound wasn't a cake walk even without Mr. Prehensile Tongue eyeing everyone sideways."

"Welcome to Leaf," Sasuke responded blandly with a slight, bitter tilt to his lips.

"Aaah, don't let your friend hear you say that about his precious village." Suigetsu grinned and put the last piece of vegetable in his mouth. "How'd you know anyway? Bet you haven't even gone out yet unless they dragged you."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Suigetsu laughed and waved his arm dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, not my business." He walked past Sasuke (who turned to keep him in plain sight the whole time, the paranoid bastard) and picked up the shirt. "I'm going to wear this out," he said. "But seriously, you should go outside. Being inside is bad for you. You're going to get flabby or something. Besides, you don't have any food in your fridge anymore. See ya!" And he flung the screen from the window open and threw himself out, the music of Uchiha Sasuke shouting his name like a curse word following him all the way to the ground.

* * *

None of the information in the reports came as a surprise to Tsunade. She knew what to expect from her former teammate let loose on fucked-up kids with interesting bloodline traits, and she got it. There were a few new pieces here and there…new experiments on new people, small leads on where to find the many people and bases left behind after Sound's collapse. She didn't know if she would follow any of those leads, but at least they existed if anyone else felt like it. She made a note to send a few of the other Kages a quick note on the ones in their areas, and then went back to preparing for her part in this whole drawn-out spiel.

It still didn't feel right to consider Orochimaru's doings old news, but she shrugged it off and went through the reports fairly quickly. On the upside, the parolees seemed to be cooperative, inasmuch as people like them could be. Hopefully, that would make her job easier. Either way, it would be nice to step away from the office for a moment and get back into the hospital.

She'd made the time in her schedule to see the first parolee today and get their physical examination out of the way, but the only one who offered to come in for the first slot was Suigetsu. _He_ wandered in half an hour late, sat down on the exam table, and nonchalantly kicked off his shoes like he expected to spend the afternoon relaxing at a bath house instead of in an exam that could determine his entire god damned future.

"So, what's the plan for today?" he drawled, sounding kind of bored.

"You'll address me as Godaime from now on," Tsunade responded brusquely, taking the blood pressure cuff down from where it was hanging on the wall by reflex. "And I will just be taking a few vital signs. Maybe an x-ray."

"Can't x-ray me anymore," Suigetsu said. "Can't x-ray water, can you? Bet you can't." He stuck out his arm. "Can't take my blood pressure either, but you can try if it's what does it for you."

"You still have a heart," Tsunade presumed. "Or else you wouldn't be alive right now." He was right, though, that his circulatory system probably ran on water instead of blood these days, and that would make the cuff useless. "Right. Change of plans, then. Sit still while I take your pulse, then oxygen saturation levels." She pressed two fingers to his wrist and counted, then clipped on the SPo2 pulse oximeter and was surprised to see the saturation at one hundred percent. She assumed his organs fell apart and then reformed when he formed the rest of himself from the water, and it seemed that his heart and lungs reformed normal and healthy. Lucky kid, or as lucky as a kid like this could be.

"Yeah, I don't have blood anymore," Suigetsu said, flicking his finger until the probe came off. "It's pretty awesome. They used to inject me with that…whatever's in that bag…see if my blood would turn into salt water. It did but I got rid of it just fine, you know? Then it all got fucked up and I don't have blood now. Hey can I drink this anyway?" He prodded the bag of saline.

"I don't think you want to," Tsunade replied, mind half on her readings. "But here." She threw him one of the water bottles she'd stacked up on the counter, figuring at some point she would be examining him and he would need them. He drank an entire bottle almost instantly, and then flopped back on the table.

"What now?"

"I'm going to take some of your body water and run a few tests," she said. There was only so much she could do in an external exam when he was made entirely of water. "I'm just going to be running a panel on your electrolyte levels and see how that balances out compared to others. It will only take a moment, then you're out of here." She took a sample cup from the table and walked back up to him, taking his hand. "This won't hurt, and I'll give you plenty of water to drink to replenish the little bit you'll lose."

Suigetsu tensed up, his relaxed posture suddenly looking a hell of a lot more forced. "Nothing for you to take samples of, I told you already."

Tsunade frowned, surprised at the sudden tension. "Godaime, please."

"Whatever. I already told you, I'm made of water and whatever I eat. You want a sample, you might as well test the bottle of water you just gave me."

What the hell? Was the kid scared of needles or something? Tsunade approached the table, making sure her body language was as unthreatening as she could make it. "I want to do the tests myself for the formal record," she explained carefully. "Among other things, I want to take a look at your electrolyte level. If you drop below a certain…"

"Oh, I know about electrolytes," Suigetsu interrupted, leaning back so he was resting his arms on the exam table—and incidentally putting more space between them. "If you don't have enough you pass out. Can't have a bloodline like mine and not know about electrolytes."

"That's… good," Tsunade said carefully, "but I still want to do the test."

Suigetsu shrugged stiffly. "If you want… It's a waste of time, though seriously." He sat up again, eyeing her like she was going to bite him. "They tried everything, you know? I can't be cut or have bones broken or anything like that. I don't even respond to electricity right anymore. I just puddle."

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "I'm going to take a small sample from your hand. Just enough to fill a bottle." She held one up. "Meanwhile, why don't you tell me what nutrients you generally need to stay stable?" She made a show of turning her back and rummaging through a drawer.

"I dunno, they just dumped some shit in every so often, and I'd look at them and it made them really uncomfortable." He grinned at her as she turned around and started making her way towards him again, sharp as a shark. "He didn't like to be reminded of his mistakes."

"And what did you do after you got out?"

"Drank lots of water, and those power drinks, disgusting but it works."

"Hrm. It seems to have been working fine so far," Tsunade responded carefully, not sure whether to be encouraged by the change from avoidance to aggression. "Your heart…when you have one…is in very good shape."

"Clean living," he said, his shoulders taking on a set that was just slightly more naturally relaxed. "That's what it is."

"I'm sure. Now if you won't mind, you're dripping all over the floor."

"Oh! Hey, happens sometimes." He stopped, then started to wring out his shirt, and she put the cup out to catch it. "Have any of those power drinks around here? Haven't had one in days. Should have made Karin get me one."

"I do, they're in the kitchen."

"I know where that is! Gonna go get one, thanks. Bye, lady." And before she could say anything else, he phased through her machine and half-ran half-sauntered out the door, leaving her with the shoes he'd forgotten to take with him and a heart monitor fizzling sparks. Annoying, but easily fixed, and it wouldn't be the first time someone broke it.

Tsunade looked down into the cup. She had managed to catch just enough water where she could run at least two, maybe three tests.

Now, if she could only figure out what set him so on edge about a fucking electrolyte test, she'd be golden.

* * *

Tsunade's first impression of Karin back during the war was that she had a temperament to match her red hair and that she had a chip on her shoulder bigger than all the elemental countries combined. This impression hadn't changed over the years, and having to literally order her into the hospital for a physical exam after she failed to show up to three appointments Tsunade'd asked her about only reinforced it yet again. She sighed inwardly and braced herself as her patient looked around the room with an air that practically leaked disdain, carefully removed her shoes as though the whole act was somehow a great inconvenience to her and thus the world in general, and daintily planted herself on the exam table as though she was concerned it would come alive and bite her.

"Wonderful that you could make it," Tsunade couldn't help but snark as she pulled out the correct chart and turned to a new exam page.

"I didn't have much choice," Karin snapped, adjusting her glasses and glaring at Tsunade like she hoped she'd spontaneously combust.

Tsunade frowned. "I don't appreciate your tone," she said levelly. "I am not only the lead medic-nin of this hospital, but the Godaime Hokage. Treat the damn title with the respect it deserves."

Karin huffed and looked away. Tsunade sighed.

"Do you have any questions before we begin," she asked wearily.

"Yes," Karin answered immediately. "I want to know what you plan to do during this examination."

"I was planning a physical exam-blood pressure, eyes, ears, balance, posture…" she waved a hand to indicate what else. "Then a few x-rays. The whole thing should take no more than an hour."

"You didn't do most of those things for Suigetsu," Karin pointed out, eyes narrowing.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss other patients' examinations," Tsunade responded delicately, taking down the blood pressure cuff. In truth, she'd decided that a person who could literally change any physical characteristic about himself that he wanted given enough water needed a chemical exam more than a physical one, but that was information she had absolutely no need to give to this girl.

"Hmph. I'm practically his previous medic-nin," she insisted. "You should be asking _me_ about those things. Also, tell me what you're going to do before you start to do them," she snapped, eyeing the blood pressure cuff with sharp eyes and a twist to her mouth.

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "I will certainly keep that in mind," she said wryly. "This is a blood pressure cuff. I am going to wrap it around your upper arm and then inflate it to check your blood pressure."

"I know what a blood pressure cuff is," Karin snapped, straightening up where she sat as though she'd just been mortally offended. Tsunade sighed. This was going to take a lot longer than an hour…

* * *

It was after midnight several days later when Tsunade got around to looking at the x-rays. She hadn't stopped being Hokage just because the Counsel wanted her to front the physical side of vetting the former Sound nin, of course, and the time she'd taken out to check them over had been spent making up meetings, none of them short. She was constantly annoyed to learn just how many people _insisted _that whatever they needed was important enough to warrant the Hokage's attention, whether or not she actually needed to get involved or had other, more pressing things to do.

She huffed in remembered irritation as she clipped up the x-rays. No one would bother her this late, and especially when she was working in the hospital. They all knew better.

Suigetsu didn't have an x-ray, at least not yet. She'd be relying on the lab results until she could figure out what to do about his internally formed organs. Thus far, he appeared to be a particularly nutrient rich puddle.

Sasuke's showed many broken and reset bones, but nothing too unusual for a nin his age that had been through the war. She noted that his ribs were covered in tiny lines and the remnants of fractures, some healed well, others jagged and uneven, likely badly healed breaks gotten on the battlefield when there were no medics around. Similar marks were on his arms and collarbone, and one particularly nasty one on the base of his spine. She frowned at that one and made a quick note to look into it a little further. From the preliminary x-ray it looked like he hadn't suffered any nerve damage, but it wouldn't hurt to take a better look. She ought to take a better look at some of those breaks, too, make sure they didn't heal badly enough to affect lung function. Even so, there wasn't much past what she expected to find in an individual with Uchiha Sasuke's history. Apparently, being Orochimaru's favorite meant you mostly got healable damage with no lasting affects. She smirked sarcastically to herself as she switched to Karin's x-rays.

What she found made her pause. Karin's arms, shoulders, and back were a mess. The skin covered with thousands of tiny scarred teeth marks. There were deeper scars where no doubt someone had actually bitten out a chunk of flesh, and the skin healed oddly around it. Those she'd expected, considering the girl's particular healing ability, and she'd noted a lot of them in the physical exam she'd performed a few days ago. The deeper tissue scan just confirmed them. But there were also scarred lines down her back, like someone had cut her open length-wise. Tsunade could make out thin, long scores on her spine and in her neck and the base of her head. There was no way those could be teeth marks.

The marks were on the other side of her body too, crisscrossing her chest and stomach and the organs below. It looked like someone had taken out her intestines and cut them open, and not put them back quite right. Tsunade could see where someone had sewn them back together.

She put her hands on her hips and hooked Sasuke's x-ray back up, next to Karin's. The marks on his spine looked similar to the ones on Karin's skull. Tsunade hadn't noticed how perfect they were before because she hadn't been looking for them. She'd figured Orochimaru would be more inclined to experiment on Karin since she wasn't the next vessel. Uzumaki Karin had been disposable in a way that Uchiha Sasuke had not. The fact that they both had the same types of scars on their spines was worrying. Had Orochimaru really risked his vessel in the same way as a random girl with interesting chakra?

She clipped Juugo's up on the other side of Sasuke's, a weird sinking feeling in her stomach. He was very cooperative in the exam, doing everything she asked for as quietly and quickly as possible, as though he'd spent a lot of time in hospitals under quite a bit of incentive to do it right the first time.

The first thing that drew her eye was his heart. There were noticeable scars around each valve, and tiny, minute scars on the heart itself. Lines spread outward from his heart into the veins in his lungs. Nearby, the veins going up his neck stood out in sharper contrast to the rest. Chakra paths did follow the nervous system, so considering the extent that the curse seal was developed over time, it wouldn't be surprising that Orochimaru would cut through Juugo's nervous system, but the heart... The cuts around the heart were so small and delicate…what the hell was done to this boy's heart? Juugo had a strong pulse and normal blood pressure, so the heart was functioning. The only other time she'd seen scars like that was after heart surgery. Invasive heart surgery. Like a heart transplant. The thing was, the chakra scan she'd done during his physical would have _shown_ if he had organs that weren't his own. Why would someone have been cutting into it?

Tsunade stared at the markings. None of this added up. A ninja who needed that serious of a heart surgery didn't last that long in the field, let alone a place like Sound. If Juugo was in such critical condition that his heart would give out at any moment, Orochimaru would just take as many blood samples as he could and store them for future use. He didn't keep people alive there.

She went back over each of the x-rays again, and another time, trying to make sense of the picture she was slowly forming. Orochimaru never did surgeries, at least not in the way that medics did. Orochimaru did _experiments_. She remembered the glee in his eyes when he shoved his hands into the bodies of enemies and came out holding their lungs. He would inject people with strange concoctions to see what they did. He enjoyed spreading the curse seal and watching their minds erode away as their bodies grew stronger.

These kids had surgical scars, most of them around very important organs either for the body or the chakra pathways. They were rarely the type of surgeries that would interest Orochimaru, and they were too delicate to have been his work. Or at least, too delicate to be the work of the Orochimaru she had known, and what little she'd seen of him after he left had indicated that he'd become _more _erratic, not less. These were not the marks of someone making something awful happen to a person and then stepping back to watch the effects. These were _exploratory_ scars.

The lines on Karin's body, the scars on her abdomen, they looked too similar to Juugo's. They weren't just scars, they were surgical scars. She'd seen them countless times before in thousands of other people. She'd sewn intestines back in, hell, she'd sewn Orochimaru's back in at one point. She'd done it because he couldn't.

And there were _too _many breaks and healed rib bones on Sasuke. All ninja got broken ribs, but these were too careful, too _precise_ to be from a battle. They looked like the breaks in Karin's spine and skull—the ones that looked like someone had purposely broken her neck.

Tsunade startled herself out of her examination by yawning. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock over the door. It was almost morning now. She'd been staring at these damn things all night. She sat down at her desk and sighed, needing either sleep or coffee.

Juugo's heart. Sasuke's countless rib breaks and spine injury. Karin's intestines being put back in not quite right. These kids looked like they were cut up and put back together, and none of them mentioned anything of the sort in their interviews.

There was obviously something they weren't telling her, and she needed to figure out what.


	2. Chapter 2

_Physical Examination—Third Exam_

_Uchiha Sasuke:_

_Third round of x-rays and breathing tests support hypothesis of lowered breathing capacity due to obstruction of chest cavity. Obstruction likely due to third and fifth anterior ribs and second, third, fourth, and fifth posterior ribs. Suggest manual resetting._

_Range of motion tests still inconclusive. Patient appears to have full range of motion despite nerve damage. Patient is a little shit who is way too good at hiding weaknesses. Suggest fourth round of RoM tests, perhaps while patient is distracted._

_Further treatment—Schedule surgery for rebreaking procedure. Discuss potential avenues for RoM tests with alternate source. Suggest UN whack patient's knees when not expecting it?_

_Uzumaki Karin:_

_N/A. Second round of tests proved conclusive. See past notes re: nerve damage. Digestive tract functioning normally._

_Further treatment—judged unnecessary. Patient appears to have adapted to nerve damage and has full RoM. Patient appears to have appropriate diet. Patient rejected suggestion that she not use herself as a battery for injured nin. Vehemently._

_Juugo:_

_Tests conclusive. Cardiopulmonary system appears to be functioning normally. Digestive system appears to be functioning normally. Adrenal system appears to be functioning normally. Adrenal system should not be functioning normally, all things considered. Suggest further research._

_Further treatment—Adrenal and hormonal tests re: treatment plan. See past notes._

_Hozuki Suigetsu:_

_Who the fuck even knows? Suggest saline drip._

* * *

"Alright, then, we're agreed. Hikaru, have the D rank to the missions office by tomorrow morning. Suggest the genin wear gas masks and approach the refrigerator with caution. Actually, note that a more experienced team should take it. Actually, make it a C rank." Hikaru nodded solemnly and made a note on the paper in front of him. Tsunade nodded back. "Anyone else have anything to add?" Nobody raised a hand. "Good. Dismissed. Sakura, stay. Everyone else back to your stations."

Sakura, who'd been gathering up her charts halfway through Tsunade's dismissal, paused and looked at her former teacher quizzically. She was probably eager to get back to work. Tsunade couldn't blame her, really. Sakura had a touch-and-go case in the ICU that simply refused to stabilize for longer than half an hour at a stretch. She had the look that all medics got when their patients were frustratingly close to flatlining—large bags under her green eyes, hair greasy and pulled back with the closest available piece of string, frown lines set permanently into her forehead and around her mouth. Being a medic-nin aged you way faster than other specialties, Tsunade knew.

Tsunade grimaced and flicked her eyes at the door, an indication that she'd explain once the others left. Sakura sighed a little and nodded, settling back in her chair and flipping open the chart in front of her, picking up her pen and absentmindedly chewing on it as she glared at her jounin's stats. Tsunade suddenly felt a little bad about keeping her for something unofficial.

Tsunade settled back in her chair as the door closed quietly behind the last hospital worker. Sakura looked up and put down her pen, giving Tsunade a small smile. Tsunade quirked her mouth at her old student in return, then got straight to the point. "I'm doing surveys of how Uchiha's team is settling into the village now that they're allowed to move around freely. I figured you'd be a better source of information than Naruto."

The small, inquiring smile dropped off Sakura's face faster than a person dropped with a kunai to the throat. She shook her head, looking resigned, and sat back in her chair a bit. "Sorry, Shishou, but you've definitely come to the wrong place. Sasuke and I… haven't really connected since he's been back."

Tsunade blinked. That… was pretty unexpected actually. She wasn't getting regular reports on Uchiha's movements anymore, since the brats were ostensibly on parole and that meant the ANBU teams reported once every other week unless asked explicitly. But the reports had heard that even before they were cleared, Sakura visited Sasuke as often as was allowed. Twice a month, granted…but it was still a fair amount of trouble to go through, even moreso if they weren't getting along.

"You visited him fairly regularly during his house arrest," Tsunade prompted, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, yes," Sakura said, picking up her pen and fiddling with it a little as she shifted uncomfortably under Tsunade's stare. "But it was… mostly because he's _Sasuke_. He let me in and I put food on the table, and then he eyed me sideways as we discussed things like the weather until I had to leave."

Tsunade raised the other eyebrow. "The… weather?"

"In our defense," Sakura said dryly, putting her pen back down. "We did try to kill each other years before. I think Naruto's the only one who considers that an overture of friendship."

"He was under house arrest."

"He had windows, Shishou."

"Right." Tsunade rubbed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on. "Thank you anyway, Sakura. You can go back to your post."

"Sorry I couldn't be more help, Shishou," Sakura responded, standing up and beginning to put her charts away again. "If you want, I can ask Naruto what he thinks. He might be more open with me than you, since I don't actually have the authority to lock Sasuke back up again."

"You can if you want," Tsunade allowed, watching her finish up her packing through her impending migraine. "I'm not going to ask you officially, though. I'd rather leave that card in reserve for when it's really necessary."

Sakura smiled at her, slinging her back onto her back. "Right. In that case, I'll look into it." Tsunade waved a hand dismissively, and Sakura left. Tsunade waited until she was gone to sigh and summon an aide. She still had a lot of work to do on this case. The aide stepped in and bowed respectively.

"Bring me all the reports on Orochimaru's movements prior to his death," she ordered. "And call Ibiki." The aide bowed, respectfully.

"Would you like me to bring you some aspirin as well, Hokage-sama?"

"Bring the whole bottle," Tsunade deadpanned, and the aide retreated. Tsunade was pretty sure he was laughing at her.

Asshole. Tsunade was surrounded by assholes. And difficult former traitors. And the day was only half over.

Tsunade gave herself a whole minute to long for her bed and a bottle of sake, and then went back to her teetering piles of paperwork.

* * *

"So." Tsunade said without preamble when Ibiki entered. She had a cluster of scrolls and three notebooks on the table. "Examinations I performed on the former Sound nin showed damage to internal organs, and to me, the damage doesn't seem consistent with Orochimaru's experiments. Partly, I'm going on my experience with him in the field. The rest of it, I've got here." She picked up one of the notebooks.

"They confiscated several of his notebooks after shutting down the lab. These three here are the ones still around."

"What happened to the rest? Assuming there were more," Ibiki asked. He reached for the notebook Tsunade handed him and, when Tsunade waved her hand to tell him to go ahead, turning to the first page.

"I don't know, and yes, there were more, just no one can find them. That's one of the things I need you to do."

Ibiki nodded, shutting the notebook again. "Yes, Hokage-sama. What else do you need?"

"Who Orochimaru collaborated with while he was still in this village. He didn't work alone all the time. Here…" she pulled out one of the scrolls. "I wrote down some of the known names of his associates. One of them is still alive and lives in the northwest sector of the village." She flipped the scroll open and indicated the section where the man's contact information was listed. "One of the ninjutsu specialists Sandaime kept around due more to longevity of service instead of actual approval of his techniques." Ibiki made a noise of acknowledgment and set his mouth in a thin line. Tsunade smirked. "Yeah, he'll be fun. Go find him and ask him what he worked on with Orochimaru. Look in on the records of the others, too. See what else they did before and after Orochimaru. Try and find any other connections between them, if possible."

She passed him the scrolls and the other notebooks, and watched as he stored them in his vest, out of sight and close to his person. "Look for any records of Orochimaru's medical experiments, go through them and see if you can find anything involving more specific organs and systems rather than just the jutsus themselves, or incidents like Yamato's. Check for excessive use of electricity on said systems and organs. Make sure to ask this of the living associate. Do whatever you need to find anything from him, I don't feel like delaying this process any longer."

"One more thing," she continued, when he returned his attention to her. She leaned back in her chair and placed her hands on the armrests. "I need ANBU back watching Uchiha Sasuke. I had thought that Haruno Sakura would be able to help me with that, but it turns out she's not really close enough to get anything out of him. From what I've gathered, he's not settling in as well as the others, keeps to himself, almost rudely quiet. If we're going to get these kids to a point where we can call them Leaf nin, they need to actually interact with the others in the village. The other parolees don't seem to have this problem."

"I've heard Juugo keeps to himself as well," Ibiki pointed out mildly, raising an eyebrow.

"He still leaves his apartment, and despite his… history… no one has reported any problems with him."

"Hm… I'll have several members on it, then."

"Thank you."

"Anything else?"

Tsunade quirked a smile. "Figured that was enough for now. This… might be bigger than we anticipated, so we'll take it by ear."

"Then I will get right on this, Hokage-sama."

* * *

At the exact moment the clock chimed, Juugo showed up in the doorway. He wasn't bound, but still kept his hands clasped behind him and his eyes cast downward.

"Hokage-sama," he said.

"Juugo. Come in," Tsunade said, her voice light and welcoming. Juugo stepped in and looked all around him, his eyes darting quickly from one light to the next, from the tools on the table to the chair against the window, blood pressure cuff dangling off a hook next to the monitor. She could see the muscles bulge in his arms when he looked at the chair, and then he started taking deep breaths, and finally met her eyes.

"You wanted to see me?"

"I did," Tsunade continued. "I just wanted to see how well your heart is working. Your x-rays showed some scarring, and if it affects your cardiopulmonary system in any way, I would be glad to fix that for you." She spoke calmly, knowing what Juugo was capable of when angered or frightened.

There was no reason for him to still be so afraid of what he could do. If Orochimaru had fulfilled his side of the bargain, Juugo would probably have been under control a long time ago. But as had always been true in their time as teammates, Tsunade was the only one left to pick up the pieces once Orochimaru dropped the ball.

She had the x-ray clipped up on the board, and she showed it to him, pointing out the individual scars.

"Can you fix…anything else?" Juugo asked, his eyes going from her to the x-ray and back again repeatedly.

"I don't know yet," Tsunade continued. "But if there is a way, I will do my best to find it, I promise." She didn't make promises lightly, but this boy was owed one.

Juugo nodded. "What do you need me to do?" and then, slightly more uncertain, "What will you be doing?"

"Well, first, I'm going to do an echocardiogram. I'm going to use this machine here…" she walked over to the one in the corner. "And it's going to use ultrasound in order to give me a picture of your heart and how well it's working. It will take about a half an hour, since I want to get a very good look at what's going on here."

"Is…that it?"

"Depending on what the echo shows me, I might want to get a closer look at things. Lie down on this table, please, and remove your clothing from the waist up."

Juugo obeyed, and Tsunade placed three electrodes on his chest. "Now, lie on your left side." She took the sound-wave transducer and moved it across his chest. He let her, though he flinched when the cold gel touched his skin. He remained eerily motionless for the entire procedure, in fact, only rolling onto his right side and then his back when she told him to. He was almost calm, it seemed. She produced enough images of the heart, and let him know when she was done, and then she plucked off the electrodes.

"Hmm," she said, looking at the pictures produced by the echo. There were enough problems where it required further analysis. "I've still got more to do, but we'll be done after this test. Here," she began to prepare for the intravascular ultrasound. "I'm going to pass a transducer through a catheter which I will have to thread through an artery in your groin. It will give me a better picture of what is going on not only in your heart but in the vessels surrounding it, seeing how much further damage there is. There's more damage than I expected." She said with a sigh. "I'm going to need you to strip for me and lie down, alright?"

Juugo obeyed, and she was preparing the tools and readying the machine, and didn't notice the slight change in Juugo's eyes and the way he was tapping hard and fast against the side of the table.

"Alright," Tsunade said. "I'm going to pass this through the artery in your groin," she held up the catheter. "And it's going to show me a better picture of your heart and the surrounding veins. I'm going to give you an anaesthetic so you won't move during the procedure, and it'll be much more comfortable when you're asleep."

Juugo nodded, but his jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles were jumping. He was an oddly patient boy, although very tense, twitching at every sound in the room. His heart rate was elevated, breathing shallow. _Poor kid, what did they do to you?_

First she tied off his upper arm, finding a good vein to inject the anaesthetic into. Then she gently slid the tip of the needle into the vein. Juugo gasped, and then from the site of the needle, horrible black-red lines started crawling across his arm. "No!" Juugo said. "No no no!" The lines raced up his neck and face and for a moment his face was filled with fear and despair, and then it changed, a manic, bloodthirsty gleam coming into his eyes. He started laughing as his muscles bulged and skin changed to a dark, ugly brown, spikes jutted from his arm and on his face, and with a roar he wrenched free of the IV and threw her across the room. She hit the echocardiogram machine hard and they both crashed against the back wall.

"Needles?" Juugo roared. "You touch me with needles, woman?" His clawed hands dug into the floor, then started tearing it up. "I'll kill you for that! I'll kill you ALL!" The last word was almost unintelligible as he started breaking all the machines, ripping them apart with ease and extraordinary violence. Then he came down on Tsunade, wrapping his hands around her throat.

This was _not _going like it was supposed to.

She drew in her legs and then kicked him hard in the chest, sending him skidding backwards. He dug his nails into the floor and stopped just before he crashed into the back desk, leaving deep scores in the tiled floor. She grabbed the machine used to check vitals and shoved it in his direction, giving him a distraction while she tried to find and load a tranquilizer. Every report said that once he flew into a rage, he would attempt to kill and destroy everything in his path until it passed.

Juugo tore the machine apart and high-pitched whines and beeping filled the air. Tsunade went to the refrigerator and flung it open, reaching in and scrambling for the Ativan liquid solution. Then Juugo slammed into her and she dropped the first vial, glass shattering and liquid splashing on the floor. She swore and gathered her chakra in her arms, then grabbed Juugo's upper arms and shoved him against the glass and spilled drug. He roared with anger as the tiny shards dug into his face.

"Hokage-sama!" two assistants ran into the room, skidding to a halt when they saw the mess and Juugo. "What…"

"I'm fine, I've got this under control. Just get me some fucking Ativan!" She held his arms behind him and gave an extra push, breaking the tiles and digging him further into the ground. "As much as you can, put it in the syringe in the corner and give it to me!"

"Syringe!" Juugo's voice rang out, rough and furious. "I'LL KILL YOU FIRST BEFORE YOU FUCKING USE THAT!" He flipped around and grabbed a handful of tile, shoving it into Tsunade's face. Pain flared as the tiles dug into her cheek and blood started dripping onto the floor. She had to let go of one arm to get the tiles out of her face, and he pulled free and started going after the assistant who was filling the syringe. The assistant had enough time to look up before Juugo punched her in the face and sent her flying backward, then he leaped onto her and started tearing out her throat.

Tsunade didn't have time to think about that, she had to get the damn Ativan into this thing before he did anything else. She ran over and filled the syringe, breathing hard and hoping it was enough.

The needle was filled with enough ativan to knock out three two-hundred pound men, but Tsunade could counter it if it slowed his central nervous system too much. For now, she stuck the needle into his neck and pushed the Ativan, and within the minute he fell unconscious to the ground, and several minutes later the physical changes receded and left just Juugo, passed out on the floor, breathing too slow.

Tsunade had seen worse than this before. But the other members of her staff hadn't.

"Get Haruno in here," she said, panting and covered in sweat and blood. "I'm going to need some help cleaning up."

* * *

Juugo sat in the middle of the floor with his hands folded and his eyes closed. He didn't touch anything in his apartment after closing the door. He knew he should change, his clothes were shredded from the transformation, and he knew he should wash, there was blood on his arms, fingers and under his nails. But what he knew and what he actually did were never the same.

The Hokage was a good person. She was kind, she was a brilliant medic and one of the best ninjas of their age. There was no reason to attack her and destroy the lab, no reason to kill one of her assistants who was just trying to be helpful. No reason to have an episode when he had gone years without one.

After a few hours of this, he got up and locked the door, then lay on the couch. He was always tired after an episode, and eventually he fell asleep.

He was woken up by loud banging on his door.

"No one come in here," Juugo warned, the words out of his mouth before he was on his feet, ready to force whoever it was back out. He needed to be alone, he didn't want to see _anyone,_didn't want to think about what happened and why it happened at all.

"Yeah?" Karin's voice sounded from the other side. "Why the hell not?" Then she kicked down the door and walked in. "Ugh, it smells disgusting in here, you need to take a shower." She turned around and picked the door up, carefully propping it into its frame, then looked him up and down. Juugo suddenly didn't even have the energy to protest. "Seriously, go take a shower."

Juugo found the energy to protest. "Why are you here?"

"Why not?" Karin shrugged. "Heard you broke the Hokage's lab. That sucks." She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, digging through it for some food.

"I don't want to talk about it," Juugo mumbled.

"Fine, I don't really care." Karin replied. She pulled out the remnants of an old sandwich. "Why'd you do it? I'm throwing this out, it's fucking gross. I thought Suigetsu was bad about the shit he left in his fridge."

"I don't…I don't remember."

"Seriously?" she poked her head back into the living room, holding out the sandwich. "Seriously, do you never clean your fridge? No wonder it smells so bad in here." She ducked back into the kitchen and threw the sandwich in the garbage. "Don't remember why you did it? Do you just forget _everything_when you go crazy?" she paused. "That sucks." There was shuffling in the kitchen and the sound of things being thrown in the trash. After five minutes of this, Karin came back into the living room. "Why are you not in the shower? Seriously, you're disgusting, there's blood everywhere."

Juugo wasn't sure how to respond; he was never sure what to do around Karin, or around Suigetsu, despite their years of knowing each other. The only member of their little band of former Sound nin he was comfortable around was Sasuke, and he seemed to be the only one who was.

She was right in that he should shower. He threw out all his clothes, too, for good measure.

When he came back out, the garbage was filled with old food and what seemed like half of his kitchen. The air smelled of dust and mold and vinegar. Karin was sitting at the table with vinegar-soaked rag next to her, and she was eating some noodle soup. There was another bowl on the other side of the table. "You'd better fucking eat that," she said. "I bothered to make it, and cleaned your kitchen because it was so disgusting I couldn't stand to even be here. Probably everyone thought that and that's why you never have any visitors, ugh."

Juugo sat down and started eating the soup, realizing he was extremely hungry. He ate the whole bowl in under five minutes, then he went to the fridge to see if there was anything else to eat. There wasn't much but he ended up finishing all ofwas left in there. He'd almost forgotten how hungry he was after an episode. He thought he had it all under control after so many years being fine. But that… that …

His hands tightened into fists when he remembered the pull of the tourniquet and the pinch of the needle in his arm. Again. And again. And the Hokage only tried it once but others did it again and again and every day…week, month, hour, in his arm, in his back, in his spine, then deep in his chest, sometimes taking blood and sometimes putting _things_into his body and -

He felt a hard blow to the side of his head, and Karin stood there scowling. "Don't start that shit while I'm here, I don't feel like dealing with it."

Juugo looked down and saw the dark lines starting to spread across his chest. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths until they receded. The sat back down and put his head in his hands.

"Why'd it happen anyway?"

He shook his head.

"Thought you said it doesn't randomly happen anymore. Not since the war."

"I did it on purpose sometimes during the war."

Karin shrugged. "Doesn't matter," she replied. "We all did shit like that." She picked up the bowl and dumped the rest of the noodles into the trash, then put the bowl in the sink. "You clean that, I'm done doing your stupid chores."

"You didn't have to."

She shrugged again. "Whatever. Seriously, why'd you do it? Why'd it happen?"

Juugo sighed, and looked down at his plate. Across from him, Karin huffed in exasperation.

"Whatever. I'm going home, clean the rest of your shit yourself." She pulled down her sleeves and started towards the door.

Juugo still didn't know why she bothered to come. No one really knew Karin's motivations, other than she wanted to manipulate everyone around her for one reason or another, and she was still desperately seeking Sasuke's affections, and constantly in a verbal war with Suigetsu.

"Needles," Juugo said when she was almost out the door. "She was… needles."

Karin stopped. "Oh,"

"She was just going to help me. She said there was something wrong with my heart."

Karin turned around. "Was there?"

"I don't know. She showed me the x-ray but I don't know what my heart is supposed to look like. In Sound he never showed me the x-rays he took."

"Yeah," Karin agreed. "I don't think he showed anyone."

He didn't know what else to say, and when it stretched on for too long, Karin sighed and left.

Juugo went back to the couch and sat there, rubbing his arm convulsively. This time he was done _forever._Whatever it took, he would _not_have another episode and _not_kill anyone else, not unless he was in the field doing his duty as a ninja. He'd hoped that this time he might have found a place where he could get himself under control, could be an asset in the field and not a danger to his allies even there, but it seemed it was not to be. It didn't matter what Tsunade did, what the others did in the past, he was _done_with this.

He wondered if she would still help him after he wrecked her lab and killed one of her assistants, anyway. He didn't expect she would. In her situation, he definitely wouldn't.

He should leave the village before he hurt anyone else.

* * *

Karin made it a habit to spy on everyone else in the village. Most of them were boring, but she kept an eye on them anyway in case they stopped being boring and started doing something she'd want to use. She wasn't a warden anymore, but old habits died really hard, and she didn't know if she actually wanted to shake this habit. It was fun to watch people and see what they'd do.

After she left Juugo's house, she went to look at Sasuke for a bit. He wasn't being interesting at all, just sitting in his room reading or something. Still, she always wanted to look at him because he was such a damn fine looking man, and if she had the opportunity she'd watch him all day until he took his clothes off. But his damn sharingan knew she was there half the time and he made her leave. Whatever.

Then she went to see what Suigetsu was doing, which was sleeping. But he heard her and woke up. His eyes shot to the window, but he relaxed when he realized who it was and grinned at her, showing his pointy teeth. Then he phased out of his clothing and waved at her. Perverted asshole. She flipped him off and he saluted her. Why was he _always_such an asshole? Why did she bother to put up with his stupid immature crap?

That kid with the dog was pretty hot, so she went to look at him for a bit, but the dog was fucking huge and went right after her and she didn't feel like dealing with that. She probably still smelled like Juugo's fridge, gross.

Speaking of Juugo… She felt a familiar chakra from nearby, and stopped to follow it. Juugo, heading north. What the fuck was he doing out? No former Taka member did anything without Karin knowing why. She jumped along the roofs, following after him, then landed in front of him. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

Juugo froze, and she could see fear on his face, hidden by the cloak he had tossed haphazardly over his large frame. "How did you find me?"

"I felt your chakra, obviously," Karin rolled her eyes. "I can track all you morons anywhere, did you forget that?"

"Were you looking for me?"

"Not really, I was _trying_to see the guy with the dog start training, then you got in the way."

Juugo looked down and folded his hands in front of him. "Sorry," he said.

"Whatever, I'll just go look at him later. Hey where are you going? Anywhere interesting?"

Juugo shook his head.

"That's no fun," Karin whined. "I followed you here for nothing, then?"

"It would seem so," Juugo said. He started walking again, quickly and purposefully.

"Don't walk away from me!" Karin shouted after him. "That's fucking _rude_," she caught up with him in a moment. "Spend a few years away from Sound and think you can be rude to me?"

Juugo whirled on her, anger flaring in his eyes. "I can be rude to whomever I want," he informed her, calm tone of voice jarring with his tense frame and angry eyes. "And we're not in Sound anymore, and you're not our warden and never will be again."

"Then what, you're just rude to everyone?"

"No."

"Then you hate me," she put her hands on her hips. "You hate me _so much_you won't even tell me where you're going!"

"I'm leaving!" Juugo stated matter-of-factly, stepping away from her. "I'm leaving the village. Sorry," he added. "I just don't want to hurt anyone here, they've all been terribly kind to me."

"That's stupid," Karin retorted. "Like you'll be better off anywhere else."

"Maybe I will be."

"Wow, you're really stupid if you think that."

Juugo flushed. "Don't call me stupid, Karin."

"Then stop _being _stupid. Fuck, we've seen half the other villages out there. It's not going to be any different, so might as well stay here where the rest of us are."

Juugo hesitated.

"Yeah, you know I'm right, I'm always right. Plus," she added. "Sasuke is here. What are you gonna do if he needs you for something and you're not here? Yeah, that's right." She nodded firmly when Juugo looked down and started tapping his fingers against his thigh. He always did that when he was thinking. "Yeah he'll need to do something and go 'Where the fuck is Juugo?' and then you _won't be here,_what _then?"_

Juugo's face muscles spasmed, and his fingers tapped quicker and quicker. Good, he was probably going to stay. She didn't want any of the former Taka members where she couldn't see them, That would be really problematic if she needed to make them do something later.

"You're right," Juugo whispered. "You are."

"Yeah, of course," she tossed her hair. "No fucking shit. Go home."

Juugo was very good at taking orders when he wasn't in a state. He started home and she followed him the whole way, making sure he actually went into his apartment and stayed put.

That was better. She didn't need him walking out on her.

Now she could get back to business, and that business probably involved seeing if the man's dog wasn't so close to him anymore.

* * *

Juugo couldn't and didn't want to sleep that night, too many snippets of memory crowding his mind when he closed his eyes, old sensory imprints crawling across his skin. But he knew despite that he wasn't going to leave the village.

* * *

Tsunade thanked her aide of the day, and waited until she'd left the room and closed the door before raising her eyebrow at the slightly darker shadow in the corner. Ibiki calmly stepped out of it, looking not the least bit concerned about his complete failure to use her door and/or make an appointment like a normal human being. Tsunade decided to pick her battles. "Well?" she asked.

Ibiki nodded respectfully and pulled out a few scrolls. "Hokage-sama." He somehow managed to find enough room on her desk for the pile, and spread the first out in front of her. "To begin, it appears that Orochimaru's former notebooks were destroyed. My apologies." Tsunade waved a hand dismissively, mind already on the scroll in front of her. She had figured the notebooks would be gone, but it was worth it to check.

"What did you come up with, then?"

"This," Ibiki started, tapping the scroll on the corner, "is a comprehensive report of all the interactions with Orochimaru we were able to discover. This particular scroll has them catalogued by frequency of collaboration and by date of collaboration. This one," he continued, picking up another and spreading it over the first, "indicates the nature of those collaborations." He did a few quick handseals and tapped the second scroll. It became partly transparent, allowing enough of the scroll below to appear so that the new information appeared to correlate with the correct collaboration. "As you can see, Orochimaru rarely worked with the same scientist more than once, and in the event that he did, their collaboration rarely correlated with previous collaborations. There were a total of six exceptions." He picked up a third scroll and opened it up, holding it so that Tsunade could see.

"…Well, of course _Danzo_ was one of them," Tsunade grumbled.

"Hm," Ibiki agreed, stern mouth turning down at the edges. There was not a single jounin in Leaf who harbored anything less than dislike for Danzo.

"What about the others?" Tsunade asked, picking up a pen and making a few notes of her own on the research correlation scroll. "What were the projects, and what were the results?"

"Kintaro Amii and Fujusaki Hato," Ibiki began, indicating the correct scientists on the scroll, "both went to Orochimaru for his expertise in genetic sealing. Their experiments appear to have been largely successful, and resulted in an ability to mimic specific bloodline limits through permanent seal work. Unfortunately, the seals tended to either break down themselves or begin to break down the shinobi utilizing them after repeat uses."

Tsunade snorted. "Yeah," she drawled. "That was _right_ up Orochimaru's alley."

"Indeed," Ibiki agreed, "but it has little correlation to the specific medical experiments in which you expressed interest." He pulled a file out of one of his larger, inner pockets and handed it to her. "That is a preliminary report on the experiments conducted."

"Hm." She flipped through the pages until she came across a sketched seal—eight curving lines made a knot at the base of a roughly-drawn palm before sprawling lazily outward. It followed the lines of the hand, and traced up the veins in the wrist, branching out in jagged edges and sharp angles like a tree with a broken trunk and snapped branches. The shape reminded her, suddenly, of the marks on Juugo's skin as he'd snapped and fallen into an episode—all unleashed adrenaline and unchecked aggression. "Did either of these two work on the cursed seal?" she asked.

"Not that I'm aware of, but it is possible that either the work on the cursed seal or on these seals influenced the other," Ibiki replied. He tapped a different name, drawing Tsunade's attention back to the scroll.

"This associate most closely met your requirements," he explained. "His work appeared to be on specific chakra pathways and the peculiar ways they change when various outside influences are applied. However, his work seemed to be largely through chakra blocks, and occasionally through… forcing a subject to compensate to a hindrance." Ibiki's mouth twisted a little, though whether in distaste or interest was hard to say. "It was informative from an interrogation standpoint."

"Ah," Tsunade said wryly, holding out a hand for the report. Ibiki handed it to her silently before continuing.

"I bring these three up first because, interestingly enough, they all continued the collaboration without Orochimaru's direct input after a short period in Sound. Orochimaru sent them a number of assistants over a short period, presumably to continue his part of the collaboration and to report the results to him."

"Hmmm… that _is_ interesting," Tsunade murmured carefully, feeling her eyebrows meet her hairline. She carefully put the file down on the desk. "That's not his modus operandi."

"No, Hokage-sama," Ibiki agreed. "Orochimaru was historically very jealous of his work and his assistants. To allow an assistant, let alone _several_assistants, continue to work with someone after his direct input was no longer necessary was unprecedented in Leaf."

"Hm…" Tsunade drummed her nails on the closed file, thinking. "Look into those collaborations, and what else the assistants worked on while they were with the collaborators."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Now, who's the next one?"

* * *

Uchiha Sasuke showed up on time to his operation appointment. Tsunade wasn't surprised, had in fact planned on it. So far, the fact that Uchiha Sasuke was incapable of being late (or early, but considering he generally looked like any interaction with her was somewhat akin to someone pulling his teeth out one by one, that was expected) to an appointment was the only positive piece of information she'd gathered from this cluster-fuck of an investigation.

So, when Uchiha walked through the door to the operating room and closed it behind him, standing like he was honestly concerned that something was going to jump out of the corner and lick him at any moment, Tsunade was just finishing setting up the IV and operating table. She placed the last disinfected scalpel on the operating bench and turned to him, nodding in acknowledgement.

"Have a seat," she ordered, gesturing to the operating table, "and change into the robe there. I just have to take a look at your chart and ask you a few standard questions." She nodded at one of the aides as he let himself into the room quietly, skirted around her patient (who was doing an admirable job imitating an inconveniently placed statue), and picked up the chart. Uchiha tracked the new addition across the room with his eyes, his mouth turning down just slightly at the edges. He didn't otherwise move.

"I still think the procedure is unnecessary," Uchiha said, voice steady and emotionless. "My fighting style is very effective, and doesn't require full lung capacity." Tsunade sighed and put the chart down, giving the kid her best unimpressed glare.

"We already had this conversation," she responded, somehow managing to keep her voice from a growl through an impressive amount of effort. "Your lung capacity is 30% lower than it should be. I don't actually care if you have ways around it, it's still below accepted standards for nin in the field, and it's easily treatable. You'll only be on bedrest for a week and then light duty—which should be easy since you _aren't allowed to take missions right now_—for four more."

"There might be too much scarring for this to change anything," Uchiha pointed out, raising an eyebrow. "You said so yourself. It's a superfluous procedure."

Tsunade crossed her arms and leaned her hip against the operating table, letting her eyes narrow. "As the head medic in this village, I think the probability that it'll restore some of your lung capacity is high enough that it's worth the effort on my part and the time on yours," she told him, definitely growling a little. "Time, by the way, that we're wasting. Sit your ass down on the table and change or opt out and leave, but pick one and stop stalling."

"Fine," Uchiha said, and then turned on his heel and reached for the door, clearly ready to take the "opt out" option and run with it.

"I'll put your name down on the inactive roster as soon as I get back to my desk," Tsunade added casually, and smirked as he paused and whirled around again.

"Excuse me?"

"You don't meet physical standards, we don't send you into the field," Tsunade explained, letting the smirk widen.

"I'm the best shinobi in the fucking village," Uchiha snapped, nonchalance shattering like so much hardened clay.

"You take in 30% less air than the average person of your age," Tsunade responded reasonably. "You're going to run out and get stabbed through something vital, and then _I'll _have to front the expense. That's the rules, Uchiha. Meet the standards, or I find you a place behind the missions desk. You're technically a genin, so I can't give you an Academy position."

The kid looked ready to spit fire, which, Tsunade reminded herself, was an actual possibility. She grinned and gestured at the operating table. "Sit and change," she ordered.

He glared impotently at her for another minute, and then closed the door behind him, stalking over to the operating table and sitting down stiffly. He pulled his shirt off with a jerky motion folded it, then dragged the gown onto his shoulders and fastened it in the front before removing his pants. Tsunade wondered if he was under the delusion she hadn't seen it all before, but left him to it anyway. She picked up the chart, and continued her pre-operation spiel as though she'd never been interrupted. Behind her, the aide returned to actually preparing to assist in an intrusive procedure instead of eavesdropping like a naughty child.

"You've already read the specifics of this procedure in the summons, and we discussed them unofficially during your last session, but I am going to go over them again for the official chart. Please feel free to ask questions," she began, picking up a pen and settling onto a stool. "The problem is that it looks like a number of your ribs broke at some point in the past and then shifted inwards, so that they healed in a way that puts a significant amount of pressure on your lungs and cuts off your air supply." She paused and waited for his nod of acknowledgement before continuing.

"Today, we're going to put you under with general anesthesia, then re-break the poorly healed ribs and reset them in the correct position. I will then begin the healing process with medical chakra in order to assure that they do not shift again as they heal. Once you wake up, you will have to keep your ribs bandaged in order to maintain a certain amount of pressure on the healing breaks for a total of five weeks. I am also going to recommend that you stay on bed rest for one week and then refrain from heavy lifting or strenuous activity for about four." She pulled a piece of paper out of the chart and wrote this down, and then set it on top of Uchiha's folded clothing.

His eyes followed the movement before settling back on her face. "That's an official statement of the potential side effects and treatment after you wake up. We'll give it to you with your clothes at the end of the procedure. Unless you'd like to look at it now?"

"No," Uchiha said flatly, clamming right back up again. Tsunade rolled her eyes inwardly before looking back at the chart and flipping to the page with the information for this procedure.

"Because of the nature of the breaks, your rib cage is going to be particularly delicate for a period, so you should keep as much weight off of your chest as possible." She looked up from her chart at her patient, who was staring at her silently, hands carefully placed on his thighs and mouth set in a line. He was doing that statue imitation again, it seemed. "Any questions?" she prompted.

"_No_," he said, this time more vehemently. She rolled her eyes openly this time as she motioned the aide over to do the preliminary checks.

"My aide is going to take your blood pressure, check your pupils, and ask you a few questions. I am going to go into the other room and put on sterile clothing. I'll be back in just a minute, and we'll get started." She nodded at the aide, who nodded back and walked over to Uchiha with the blood pressure sleeve, and then left the room.

Washing her arms and putting on sterile scrubs went far too quickly, and soon she was back in the room. Uchiha had switched positions until he was lying on the table, and the aide had clearly lowered the head so that he'd be more comfortable once the anesthetic kicked in. The heart rate monitor was already hooked up, too, and the aide was placing an oxygen mask over his face and explaining that it was a standard precaution in the event that something went wrong during the surgery.

Uchiha had his jaw set like he was thinking of biting if the aide foolishly put hands too close to his mouth. Tsunade turned away and put on a pair of sterile gloves and a face mask, and then picked up the results of the pre-op eval. "Try to relax," she heard the aide say, sounding like he was trying to be soothing. "I'm just going to sterilize the area where the IV will enter your arm."

"I guessed," Uchiha responded sarcastically, voice muffled by the oxygen mask, "from the alcohol swab."

"General rule of thumb: don't snap at people who are going to be cutting you open while you sleep," Tsunade said absently, walking over as she looked at the results. It seemed Uchiha's blood pressure was a little elevated, and his pupils were responsive but dilated more than normal. Looked like he was nervous after all. Huh.

The aide traded her the chart for the IV needle as she walked by, and she nodded in thanks as she reached where Uchiha was lying. "This is going to sting a little," she told him on rote, positioning his arm for the needle (his skin was a little clammy, actually. She'd have to keep an eye on that to make sure it wasn't an indication of a problem). "Make a fist."

Uchiha hesitated for a second, and then did as he was ordered. She nodded as the vein in his inner elbow popped up, and slid the needle home in one smooth movement. She felt him stiffen slightly when the needle pierced his skin, but when she looked at him he was staring at the ceiling and paying more or less no attention to her. She rolled her eyes.

"Let me know when you're ready for the anesthetic," she told him, reaching behind her for the needle the aide had prepared. She checked it one more time, making sure it was the right dose and didn't have any air at the tip, and then waited for Uchiha's eye roll and jerky nod.

She rolled her eyes in return, and injected the general anesthetic into the IV. She turned to the operating bench and signaled the aide over, reaching out for the first scalpel and checking the chart one last time. First break was on the left side, so she'd make an incision at—

The heart rate monitor went crazy as Uchiha's breathing changed—shallow and panic-fast. She whirled around just in time to see fear-stricken eyes as he rolled off the operating table, taking the IV with him. The pole tipped over towards the operating table, metal feet hitting the metal legs holding the operating table with a loud clatter. Uchiha rolled into a crouch and ripped the line out of his arm, and then tipped the table itself over and scrambled backwards towards a corner. The IV, carried by the momentum from the table, fell onto the operating bench and knocked most of the implements onto the floor. The table hit the ground with an almighty crash.

Tsunade had sprung free of the area the moment she'd seen the kid start to move, and now found herself with her back to the door and a scalpel in her hand. She released the cutting jutsu in her other hand, and kept the scalpel. "_Out_," she shouted as the door opened and a few of her personal guard tried to enter (being Hokage had its perks—Tsunade had her own personal guard within shouting distance of her at all times, which was the main reason why her more high-security patients had always been given a modicum of privacy). She didn't pay attention to whether they listened, instead watching the (very dangerous) eighteen year old currently hyperventilating in a corner of her operating room, eyes darting after things that definitely weren't there. The bloody needle was on the ground between him and the carnage, smearing red onto the clean tiles. "Shit," Tsunade snapped out between gritted teeth. "Uchiha!"

The brat was ignoring his arm, which was bleeding sluggishly down from his elbow in thick red lines. They ran down over the summoning tattoo on his wrist and into the lines on his hand before pooling on his clenched fingers and dripping slowly off onto the tile. He was still breathing too fast, almost hyperventilating, loud in the now silent room, back plastered to the wall and fists clenched so hard that his knuckles were white. The smell of blood slowly mixed with the antiseptic in the room. He was crouched like he'd spring at anyone who got too close, eyes so wide that his pupils were visible even in his black eyes for the instant before they bled sharingan red.

"Uchiha!" Tsunade tried again. "Sasuke!"

"No," he gasped, pushing against the wall. He was turning alarmingly white.

"Sasuke," Tsunade snapped. "Look around you. You are having a flashback. Listen to what I am saying, kid, you are seeing things that aren't there." She'd seen this enough times before to know.

Sasuke made a gasping sound and bit his lip until it bled, a single line staining his teeth and then catching between this lip and chin. He looked… very young, and very scared. Tsunade realized that he hadn't tried to defend himself yet. "You… you have to ask him first. You can't…"

"Sasuke! You're here, in Leaf, with me," Tsunade said, trying to make her voice calmer and more matter of fact. "What you are seeing is _not happening_. Tell me if you're hearing this, kid."

"You have to _ask_," he snapped, eyes fluttering. "You… he said… can't touch the Vessel without asking him…" That was the oxygen hitting his brain, then, along with the anesthesia finally starting to kick in. He'd probably been put under before—it was taking longer than it should have to take effect. It didn't look like the blood loss was a problem yet, and Tsunade decided not to think about that possibility too much.

"Sasuke," Tsunade tried again, even softer. "Sasuke, you are in Leaf. You are in Leaf and you are having a flashback. Come on, kid. Try to look around you. Can you see this room? _Sasuke_." She took a measured step towards him.

His eyes snapped to her, and then flitted away again on a gasp, falling on the needle. He made a gasping, terrified sound that seemed to have aspirations of being a sob, and sunk down onto his knees. He pressed his bloody hand onto the floor and pushed himself backwards, pushing another against his chest like it hurt. "You… please, you have to ask Orochimaru," Sasuke insisted, voice cracking. "You… have to ask…" his eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped, finally passing out.

"_Fuck_," Tsunade snapped again. "_No_, don't get near him." The aide, who had moronically started moving towards the kid, stopped in his tracks, eyes wide. "I'll do it. You go tell the ANBU hovering outside the door that I'm going to need to transfer him back to his apartment in a few minutes."

The aide cleared his throat, obviously pulling his professionalism around him like a cloak. "Yes, Hokage-sama," he said, and left the room.

Tsunade waited for the door to close behind him before picking up a roll of bandages and some antiseptic wipes and making her way cautiously over to the boy. He was slumped against the wall, eyelids fluttering, breathing back to normal. He didn't move as she approached—well, he shouldn't. The anesthesia they used on ninja of his quality would put out a fucking elephant. She knelt down in front of him, paying no mind to the blood that stuck to the pants of her scrubs, and reached out for his arm, uncurled his fist. He'd dug his nails into his palm until they bled. She sighed and opened one of the wipes. "Who were you talking to, kid?" she asked aloud. "Why didn't you try to defend yourself? You could've blasted everyone in this room. Why didn't you?"

Sasuke didn't respond.

She sighed and reached for his elbow, cleaning some of the blood off before pressing some cotton to the wound and bandaging it firmly to keep some pressure on it and stop the bleeding. Then she moved down to his palms and cleaned them off with a few swipes of a new antiseptic wipe. She bandaged that, too, and then moved to the other arm.

"Sorry, kid," she murmured. "I should have noticed you were so close to the edge, there, huh? Really fucking experienced medic, right here…" He'd been covered in panic sweat when she'd inserted the IV, and his eyes had been dilated. She should have focused on that instead of the heart rate. Of course the little brat would know how to slow that down—she'd already noticed that he was way too good at masking weakness.

With that in mind, it was easy to reassess his actions and turn "annoyance" into "terror." Particularly since he'd stopped talking _at all_when she'd made a quip about operating on him while he slept.

That had probably not been the best thing to say, in hindsight.

She finished with that hand and checked the rest of him over quickly, to make sure he hadn't gotten injured in some other way in his mad dash across the room. He hadn't, fortunately. She took a length of bandage and wiped some of the blood off his lip.

Apparently, she'd been barking up the wrong tree with this investigation. Or maybe an adjacent tree. There was one person she could think of who might fit the bill, and there could have been others like him.

She stepped back as two ANBU entered with a stretcher. "Take him to his apartment and have someone keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't wake back up in a flashback."

She left the room before they had a chance to respond. She needed to talk to Ibiki.

* * *

Sound's bases all had a particular scent—musty and damp, with a tang of cold salt from the minerals in the walls and smoke from the oil lamps and torches that gave its inhabitants some semblance of light. Sasuke smelled the walls of his old room in Sound before he opened his eyes to them, mind slowed from kicking off the anesthetic and blood loss and limbs heavy with—

He froze, and tried to move his arms again. The straps dug into his wrists, making his fingers throb from the slow loss of circulation. He gasped, sharp against his raw throat, and felt the cords holding him to a backboard tighten against his shoulders and legs—too tight, too tight, that asshole always bound you too tight if he didn't want you to move, what had—

The memory forced itself through the fog in his brain, of lying on his stomach with his arms and legs bound, the cold, sharp pain of an incision at his back and the click of an electrode that _shot_through his entire body, and the blood in his mouth as he bit down on his tongue as that fucking _voice_warned him to say if he stopped feeling his _legs_, and then the electricity had started and he'd screamed anyway. His back and legs throbbed, as though waiting for him to remember just to _hurt_, and he couldn't breathe—

Something landed on his chest, and he kicked it off before even really thinking that it shouldn't be possible while tied to a backboard.

"Ow! You _asshole_, those were my _fucking ribs_. Damn it, fuck, ouch, what is _wrong_ with you—"

Naruto shouldn't be in Sound either.

Sasuke blinked, and felt the room shift around him a little, his room somehow ending up alongside his _other_ room, the one in his new apartment in Leaf, with the window that he'd screened so he could keep it open and the huge, thick, heavy bedspread and one blond idiot clutching his ribs on Sasuke's floor and keeping up an impressive litany of insults for someone who was insisting his ribcage was shattered. Sasuke's stomach rolled, and he sat up and drew his knees to his chest, disoriented. He felt sick.

His back was still throbbing.

"_Shut up_," he snapped, voice cracking. He felt his throat and lungs burn from even that, and he realized he was panting. He forced his breathing slower and tried again. "Shut up, you loud, obnoxious, moronic waste of space, why the fuck would you jump on someone while they're sleeping—"

"Fuck _you_, see if I snap you out of it _next_time you have a fucking seizure or whatever the fuck was going on there—"

"It's called a _nightmare_, you idiot." Sasuke's head throbbed and the cords tightened on his ribs again, the room shifting back towards Sound, with its cold and its damp musty stone. His throat tightened, and he forced the words out to the apparition of Naruto lying on cobblestone in the dark. "Maybe you've heard of them, people with _brains_occasionally—"

"I fucking know what a nightmare is, you jackass, your eyes were open—" Naruto pounded on the floor—stone?—deep blue carpet for emphasis, the sound muffled by the wool fibers, glinting on sunlight in a cold, dark room. "—_and_ I fucking said your name four times, it's not my fault you—"

"_Shut up_," Sasuke snapped again, and shut his eyes tight against the rolling in his stomach. He breathed again, feeling the cold start to let go of his bones a little, the warm sunlight finally reaching him through the memory, leaving him shaky and weak and sore, but very much not in Sound. He swallowed, and let go of one leg to swipe at his face. "There's no dealing with you, fuck."

Naruto made a huffy noise, and Sasuke lifted his head and looked over to see Naruto reclining on the floor, scowl firmly in place and jaw working, like he had a few things to say about that but, due to some sort of miracle, had decided not to let whatever it was spew out of his mouth in a litany of self-righteous crap for once.

He breathed in carefully, and choked on the last vestiges of damp stone, stuck in his nose like he'd left it just a minute ago, like he hadn't been here in his room the entire time. The sudden urge to blow his nose got him carefully straightening his legs and swinging them off the bed, ignoring the numb stiffness he always had in the mornings and after pushing too hard for too long with the ease of long practice, and took a determined step towards his bathroom.

His knees tried to give out on him, and the room spun from the drug still leaving his system, but if Naruto noticed the moment of shooting panic before Sasuke got his shit back under control he didn't say anything.

"I was at the hospital," Sasuke stated, reaching for a tissue and blowing the rest of the memory out of his nose. He felt… it was hard to say. Calm was the wrong word. He felt like he was holding onto composure by his finger nails, and he certainly wasn't what anyone would term _steady_. But he felt—detached? He poked idly at the feeling, and then stopped immediately as panic bubbled up from underneath.

"What?" Naruto asked, walking over to lean the door to the bathroom, not quite blocking the door with his fat ass. "In your dream you mean?"

Sasuke twitched, and eyed Naruto as cuttingly as he could. Like he'd talk about his _dreams_ with anyone. Naruto was grating on Sasuke's last nerve, making his skin crawl. He was blocking the exit, and Sasuke didn't like it. "No, you stupid waste of space. Before I woke up. I was at the hospital with the Hokage." Naruto stared blankly, and Sasuke, in what he felt was a heroic effort, did not slam Naruto's useless blond head into the doorframe. "_How did I get from there to here_?"

"ANBU brought you," Naruto said, raising an eyebrow. "You freaked out before Baa-chan could get going, and passed out like a little girl. They brought you home and stuck me on babysitting duty. And then you tried to kick in my ribs."

Sasuke felt his control snap. He grabbed Naruto by the front of the shirt and tugged, got in his face with a snarl, so gloriously angry he was breathless with it. "Get. Out. Of my apartment."

Naruto snarled back, bared his teeth wide enough that Sasuke could see his canines, the lines on his face stretched to look like whiskers, eyes shining in—was that _triumph_?

"Fuck you," Naruto growled, and then grabbed Sasuke's arms and hooked his still shaky knees. Sasuke went down like a fucking log, but he held onto Naruto's shirt and took him with him, making sure to hit Naruto right in the ribs with both his feet as he threw Naruto over him and into the toilet. The ceramic shattered with a crash, water shooting out of the pipe as the toilet fell to pieces, ceramic dust clogging the air and pasting onto the two men as they rolled onto their feet. Naruto made a sound that was half a gasp (bruised ribs) and half a bark of laughter, lunged at Sasuke's legs and used his weight to propel Sasuke ass over teakettle out of the bathroom. He punched the air out of Sasuke's lungs and used the momentum to leave Sasuke behind, jumped to his feet and planted himself near the window, sliding it open almost as an afterthought. "That the fucking best you can do?" he asked, only a little breathless from the chest injury because he was a _fucking cheating jinkuuriki who healed in fucking seconds_.

Sasuke snarled and shoved off the ground, caught Naruto by surprise with a solid punch under the chin, and back kicked him through the window. Naruto caught the ledge at the last minute and slid down the building, chakra-laced feet leaving burnt streaks on the wood as he went. Sasuke jumped out after him, intent on wiping that fucking grin off Naruto's fucking face, who the fuck did he think he was, Sasuke was going to _rip his face off_—

The damp, hot breeze passed over the town, carrying with it sun-baked wood rot and the first stirrings of ozone. The rain wouldn't come for another six hours, after the sun had fallen and Sasuke and Naruto had cheerfully beaten each other almost unconscious in a mad game of deadly tag through the village that ended in the river near the bridge where their genin team used to meet. And if Sasuke wasn't quite as solid on his feet as he usually would be, Naruto was probably too dumb to notice.

* * *

Tsunade put down the medical chart in front of her before Ibiki even entered the door to her office, mouth set and eyes intent on her new source of information. "Report," she ordered, not even waiting for him to finish closing the door and turn around completely. Ibiki blinked at her, but complied.

"Uchiha Sasuke came to at approximately 1430 hours, apparently in the throes of another flashback. Uzumaki Naruto had already been stationed in his room for such an eventuality, and managed to provide a grounding presence throughout the episode. Shortly thereafter, he provided a quick distraction."

Tsunade made a face. "Yeah. He distracted him all over the fucking village. Did he report himself?"

"No, Hokage-sama."

"Well, when he does, tell him he is cleaning up the property damage by his fucking self." Tsunade sat back in her chair again and sighed. "Did he at least manage to get those reflex tests I asked for?"

"Again, Hokage-sama, I don't have the information at this time." Ibiki looked a little put out. "He hasn't reported in, and the ANBU guard on Uchiha thought it would be… imprudent to interrupt."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Imprudent?"

Ibiki shrugged from his at-ease position. "No more a problem than usual yet."

"Hmmm…" Tsunade let it go. Those two were a headache and a half, even for the third member of their team, and Tsunade was not about to get into the middle of it. She had more important things to worry about.

"Good. I want that report as soon as it's in, even if it's just another bout of Naruto lying through his teeth about Uchiha's mental state. That said, I'd like to talk to you about the… related investigation." Ibiki nodded politely to indicate that he knew what Tsunade was talking about, and she continued. "Recent intelligence into the parolees seems to indicate that…" she paused, felt her mouth twist into a frown. Juugo had broken nearly a year's worth of control over a routine blood test, and Sasuke'd had a full out flashback and panic attack in the preliminary stages of an operation—had spoken to someone who wasn't there as though this was something that had happened before.

"They seem to indicate," she said again, "that someone who had _regular_ access to them in a medical role may have been responsible for the incidents we are investigating."

Ibiki frowned. Tsunade wondered if he had understood who she was referring to. He was head of intelligence for the village, after all. He would know about the man she was thinking about. "You would like me to change the direction of the investigation, then?"

"I would," Tsunade said, frowning. "Whoever had access to the Vessel and the foundation for the cursed seal was rather high in Orochimaru's organization. Likely, Orochimaru would have trusted them with other projects. Perhaps even allowed them to work as his representative during collaborations outside of Sound. I want you to look into the aides he sent directly—see if there are any patterns in the type of work they do."

"Understood, Hokage-sama." Ibiki looked grave, eyes hooded, as though he were already reorganizing the investigation in his head. "Was there anything else?"

"Yes," Tsunade said, equally grim. "Tomorrow morning, order the parolees back into interrogation. Apparently, they neglected to tell us something."


End file.
